Practical Nikon D60 Review

There are plenty of reviews available for the Nikon D60 from camera magazines etc, but this is a review from somebody who’s just been using it for the past 2 weeks.

On receiving my camera, I spent the next two weeks using it pretty much everyday. If you don’t feel like reading this then go to my Flickr page, look at my images taken with the camera and then buy it because its extremely good for a budget DSLR. If however you are like me and need more reason then read on. I would also strongly recommend the CameraLabs.com video review, which I found particularly useful in my own decision.

Overall the Nikon D60 is a very good camera and I would recommend it to anybody. Its very good for people who are still learning, but theres no reason why it wouldn’t be useful professionally. I am a firm believer that if you can’t make a PinHole camera, disposable camera or phone camera work for you then you are not a particularly good Photographer. The Nikon D60 has a professional quality to it however, so don’t go buying anything with higher MegaPixels unless you plan printing over A2 size!

I upgraded from a Minolta 35mm SLR and a Canon Powershot (compact trying to be slr) camera, so I am certainly not disappointed.

As with all things there are good things as well as problems with the D60. I am likely to focus on the bad points, as they are not as widely available in reviews as good points. It doesn’t by any means the bad outweighs the good.

Pros

• It feels great! – The build quality is excellent and unless you’ve owned a DSLR before you will be pleasantly surprised at how durable it is. Its a plastic body, so don’t expect what the magnesium alloy (professional models) give – but still…. really good!
• Further on the build. Its a fairly small DSLR, which I think is a good thing. Its not small and no where near the micro-bacteria size of any compact, but when compared to a 35mm or professional model its scaled down. This makes it more portable and versatile so is possibly better in my opinion.
• The camera takes SD-HC. Which is a new type of SD memory card. Their much…. much, much faster than normal SD cards. They can also hold more memory too. However the cracking whip is; their cheaper than normal SD cards. Forget Extreme IV, get one of these!
• The camera has Anti-Dust systems, not previously seen even on the D80. The sensor will vibrate and any dust is supposedly sucked out. This isn’t proved as useful yet, but its still a tick in a box as far as I’m concerned.
• The image quality is just stunning. I honestly didn’t expect to have such a high quality in my photographs. Go to my Flickr Page to check out some of my best images from the D60. You don’t need anything better unless your going to be printing over size A3 – possibly A2 (pretty damn big).
• Light sensitivity is truly amazing. It handles low lighting with pretty orgasmic results! Again, go to see my photos at Flickr to see what I mean by orgasmic…!
• If your a beginner (or even just learning) then this is the perfect camera for you. It comes with a built in ‘help as you go along’ feature. For instance, if you don’t know what Aperture priority means – it doesn’t matter because the camera will tell you.
• The Menu system is great. Providing thumbnails next to each ISO, white balance, exposure, focus (etc) adjustments to show you how you might use it. This is also great for learning Photographers.
• A small thing – but the hot shoe (external flash attachment) comes with quite a nice cover, which means you won’t have an ugly ‘metal thing’ on top.
• Admittedly a gimmick, but the menu on back turns with the camera when you hold it from landscape to portrait for example.
• When you put your eye up to the eyepiece, theres an infa-red sensor that instatly turns off the LCD screen (this is very good). Its a feature Minoltas and Sony cameras have.
• The kit lens is absolutely superb. 18mm is a fairly good wide angle and 55mm is also pretty good telephoto, so the range is very good. The aperture usually goes down to about f4, but does reach about f3.5 when in extremely low light (if you don’t know what this means, don’t worry – its pretty good!). The kit lens comes with an autofocus motor (as the D60 camera body doesn’t) so this is a sigh of relief for the lazy among us! Most impressive of all however is the VR function (Vibration Reduction) or image stabilization as its called on some cameras. This compensates for camera shake and works very very well. On most cameras, it would be unadvisable to handhold a camera with a longer shutter speed than 1/60. With this camera, I’ve taken considerably good images at even 1/3!
• The battery is fairly long life – I haven’t tested to see exactly how long, but I’ve never been caught out. In fact, on a heavy full day of photography it only went down to two bars (three being full bars).

Cons

• It only has 3 AF points (Auto Focus points). This is probably not a concern for most people buying this camera, but…. really this is so bad of Nikon. Even the Canon 400D which is now cheaper than this had 9 AF points. Nikon really need to sort this out for next time.
• It doesn’t have a grid. If you don’t know what the rule of thirds mean then look it up, because the Nikon D60 doesn’t have a grid to help you compose your images. This is quite shocking as Nikon is targeting this camera at training photographers, who generally would find this very useful.
• The camera doesn’t have Live View. Live View is when you can take pictures from just looking at the LCD screen instead of the viewfinder (eye hole).Most DSLRs haven’t to date had Live View, but I’m quite certain rivals are going to bring out cameras with it soon.
• As with all DSLRs, the orginal eypiece is rubbish. For me especially, because I view through my left eye which means I have had to press my face up against it to see properly. If you buy this (or any other DSLR) buy an eyecup… their about £ 5 and well worth it.
• There is no PC socket. Which means you can’t use studio lights. I find this quite bad, as it cannot cost that much to include a little socket. Do not despair however because you can buy adapters that fit onto the hot shoe if you need it.
• Of all the things they copied off Minolta cameras, they should have included this (Nikon I hope you listening). On my old Minolta Dinax 200si there are two control dials. This is awsome as it means you can independently change the aperture and shutter speed. On the D60 there is only one dial, so you need to hold a button in while turning it to change between aperture and shutter speed – this is quite inconvenient.
• I think there should be more information along the bottom of the viewfinder (when you look through). This is just personal taste, but look at the cameralabs.com review to actually see the inside of the viewfinder.
• While having a pretty useless mode that takes pictures for awhile to make a sort of stop frame animation, the camera has no video feature. This is disappointing and I think Nikon (and other manufactures) need to address this. Even mobile phones capture video, so why can’t a £450 camera!!!
• The camera has inconvenient multiple exposure settings – so if you want to do that sort of thing you’ll be buying Adobe Photoshop!
• At only 52mm in diameter, the kit lens will seem a little fragile to some heavy handed people. Although personally I don’t have a problem! If your focusing manually you will also notice the 52mm diameter seems odd compared to the considerably larger zoom dial’s diameter.
• The help feature can get annoying if you know what your doing and want to deliberately under/ over expose images. It doesn’t keep popping up, but a little question mark keeps flashing on the LCD screen if your underexposed/overexposed.
• In automatic mode my personal opinion is that the camera slightly overexposes. This is adjustable, but not very good if your a beginner and are unsure.

So theres my review. Overall I wouldn’t swap my D60 for anything in the same price range. If however you are ‘feature mad’ you may want to look at Canon, or Nikon’s higher models. In my opinion the quality of images over rides other rivals with their features. Below is my ratings and some sample images that I have taken. Hope this has been helpful – if so let me know and I’ll make sure I write some more!

Build Quality: 8/10

Features: 6/10 (Nikon really need to sort out the AF-points, get a PC socket and Live View on their next model)

Image Quality: 10/10 (Check out the sample images!)

Menus: 7/10

Value for Money: 7/10

Sample Images:

Here are some small versions of photographs taken with the D60. For bigger sizes go to my Flickr Page!

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